You Rocked The Vote!

If you're 18 or older, everyone's been telling you how important it is
to make your voice heard and get out there and vote! Well, on Tuesday,
you turned out in record numbers!

According to the New York Times, the youth voter turnout increased by 2.2 million since the 2004 election, with young people making up 18% of the electorate this year. That means that close to 1 out of every 5 votes in this election was cast by someone around your age!

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Here's how it broke down: 66% of the youth vote went to President Obama, and 31% went to Senator McCain. In his acceptance speech Tuesday night, President-elect Obama acknowledged the impact young people have had on this election, saying that his campaign "grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy." To anyone who ever called our generation a bunch of "slackers," take that!

We couldn't be more excited that so many young people went out and voted this year, but why was this? There are a few possible reasons. First, the candidates paid extra attention to young voters this time around, and also made good use of technology in their campaigns (remember when Barack texted us to tell us who his VP pick was?). The same goes for "get out the vote" campaigns that called out to young people through Facebook, texting, celebrities, and more.

According to Rock the Vote, 88% of young people think that we, as a group, have the power to change things in this country. Hopefully after this election, that number will have gone up to 100%! So whether or not you were pleased with who we elected President, we can all get excited about the fact that so many young people made their voices heard!

Did you vote in this election? What was it like to vote for the first time? We want to hear!